RICK ASTLEY © Peter Neill

BEING A POP STAR IS WEIRD. THERE’S NOT MUCH HANGING OFF A YACHT IN THE CARIBBEAN.

THE FOO FIGHTERS’ FAVOURITE GUEST STAR IS IN REFLECTIVE MOOD AS HE RELEASES HIS ‘BOOKEND’ COMPILATION THE BEST OF ME. IN A REVEALING INTERVIEW HE TELLS US ABOUT HIS S.A.W. YEARS, FORGING HIS OWN WAY, THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY LIFE AND A HEAVY METAL ALTER EGO. STEVE HARNELL

ick Astley is having his Bob Dylan freshly recorded, ‘reimagined’ songs that different. The key, the tone of the whole thing, moment. Alongside their studio feature on the comp’s second disc are the structure is changed here and there.” incarnations, his new greatest hits intriguing reboots some distance away from The message is clear, though, the originals compilation The Best Of Me their 80s models. “Dylan has that thing of those 80s hits sound very much of their R includes striking reinterpretations where he just goes off on one on stage and time – Linn 9000 drum machine and all – but of his biggest moments. Fancy hearing Never even the musicians in his band don’t know their structures and melodies are timeless. Gonna Give You Up recast as a heart- what he’s up to until they get to a certain lyric “The Best Of Me is a bookend. Rick Astley’s new wrenching piano forte ballad? Together or moment,” Rick explains of His Bobness’ Re-recording the songs has been a nice compilation The Forever reworked as a late-night smoky jazz liking for on-the-fly radical transformations of experience,” adds Rick. “It’s been enjoyable Best Of Me includes a whole host of standard? Then step right this way… his back catalogue. “The one thing I’ve done to revisit something from 32 years ago and reworkings of his While we’re not in the realms of Tangled with my new versions is that I sing the same just pretend I’m from a different universe biggest hits Up In Blue performed as a polka here, the 10 melody, it’s just that everything else is and say, ‘This is how I’d do it today’.

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Pete Waterman had a first listen to the album the other day and remarked that [the reimagined version] made him realise just what a good song Together Forever is,” NEVER GONNA Astley adds.

ROSÉ MEMORIES GIVE YOU UP As we meet up at an elegant Maida Vale ANATOMY OF A CLASSIC restaurant beside London’s Grand Union Canal, Rick has just caught up with “The strings are very Philly. Pete [Waterman] knew that I loved a lot of artists like Waterman and the pair are still on good Luther Vandross and Alexander O’Neal. Luther was beyond everybody, his voice terms. There’s obviously no hard feelings was unbelievable,” Rick explains. “I loved older artists like Al Green, Bill Withers almost 30 years on after the singer decided and Shalamar. A lot of those records had that American to strike out on his own and leave the SAW production feel to it. There are things about Never empire that helped him sell 15 million copies Gonna Give You Up that give it an American of his debut album. vibe. I loved that Colonel Abrams record “SAW wrote some really, really great Trapped, by the way, that influences the songs,” Rick reflects, glass of rosé in hand. bassline, although I’m not sure SAW knew “They were produced in a way that puts that I admired it at the time. them in a very exact moment in time. Even “I’ve always felt happy about the they wouldn’t have produced those records song. There was a time in my life where 10 years later in the same way. They had a I may have thought, ‘Oh, for God’s formula sound, but at the end of the day you sake! I have made other songs, you can still sit down and strum them on guitar or know’, even SAW tracks, but I count play them on piano and they still work.” myself lucky. It’s hard sometimes if the With SAW’s vision of making a UK pop first song you do is the biggest one production line to rival Motown’s success in you’ll ever have. That can be hard the 60s and 70s, Astley was keenly aware to swallow but it’s also such a door that he’d have to fit into a straitjacket formula, opener. It didn’t really stop for a despite being something of an anomaly on couple of years.” the label – he had an extraordinarily soulful voice that could rock you back on your heels. SAW’s relentless workload impacted on Astley at first; he struggled to elbow his way to the front of the queue ahead of labelmates very famous before they made their Kylie, Jason, Mel & Kim et al. records, it’s a totally different angle. “SAW became massively busy around the Having said that, there’s a bit of an actor in time I signed with them and I got put on the every singer. Like Frank Sinatra said, when he back burner,” Rick explains. “Initially, the read the lyrics, he had to really get into it: feel week it went to No.1. It had been on idea was to make records and release them it, believe it. For me, that’s acting.” the radio and we’d been on Top Of The Pops on the label they’d formed but the truth of it Rick adds that his best work comes from once or twice but we didn’t have a video. was they got a bit busy. SAW had a formula when he connects with it on an emotional MTV was in its prime and if you didn’t have a and were trying to create their own empire, level, although some songs are destined for video you didn’t exist. Why didn’t [the record their own legacy. They never got a drummer classic status no matter what. label] do it? I wonder if somebody was in, never got a bass player in. That became “Never Gonna Give You Up, for example, saying, ‘Let’s just hang on with a video for a their sound. What I would say, though, is if is a great song and there are a lot of people bit. Let people discover what he looks like you put on Say I’m Your Number One by who could have sung that and it would have rather than ram it down their throats…’ Princess, You Spin Me Round by Dead Or been a hit. Whether it would have been the “I’m not the ugliest person in the world but Alive, Mel & Kim’s Respectable and let’s say hit it became if it wasn’t a combination of we were in a period in the 80s where pop Venus by Bananarama then yes, they do SAW’s writing, production, my voice, and stars looked amazing and I didn’t really tick have an 80s feel to them, but the way I looked – that box. If we look through the whole life of you can’t say all those records ie 12 years old – music, it’s not just about the voice. There have sound alike. Through the mists I couldn’t say. All been plenty of artists with not much of a of time they probably seem a those things came voice who’ve got quite big careers out of it!” bit closer to each other but together perfectly.” when I made tea for them they The initial success of THE WORLD IS MINE all sounded different to me. Never Gonna Give You Astley’s success was astonishing. Debut S.A.W. HAD A SAW found their real formula Up came amid a album Whenever You Need Somebody was with people like me, Jason and whirlwind of intrigue a worldwide hit shifting 15 million copies. Kylie a little bit later.” surrounding Astley’s From the release of that first LP to its fifth FORMULA AND THEY Yet Rick was always a man identity. Surely he was a single It Would Take A Strong Strong Man, apart on the roster. He was a record company ringer Rick was the biggest-selling artist in the WERE TRYING TO singer who became a pop star; and the real vocalist was world, bar none. But the SAW songwriting the diametric opposite an unknown black R&B singer stranglehold was broken within a year, and CREATE THEIR OWN of Kylie and from Detroit rather than a Rick’s game-changing, self-penned She Jason, freckle-faced youngster Wants To Dance With Me altered the EMPIRE, THEIR ready-made from Lancashire… dynamic when Pete Waterman selected it as stars who “I’m from Newton-le- his next single. The penny dropped – for all OWN LEGACY gradually Willows for God’s sake! Yes, concerned – Astley could survive on his own. learned their craft there was that controversy,” “As I remember it, I wrote that song as vocalists. Astley Rick laughs as he sips on because Pete loved I Wanna Dance With agrees: “Kylie and another glass of rosé. Somebody by Whitney Houston. The guys Jason came from an “We only made the used to listen to a lot of American records acting background video for Never Gonna and analyse their groove. I thought I’d do my and were already Give You Up in the version of the Whitney song. Without

64 65 RICK ASTLEY © Peter Neill really putting his brain into gear, I think Pete musicians, real strings, real drummers, a just sorta went, ‘I love it! That’s your next brass section.’ Elton John’s gonna come in single!’ Then he went off around the and play grand piano for me! If I’d said to building screaming, ‘Rick’s written his Pete, ‘I’ve written this song. I want to get next single!’ – with me having never Sting’s drummer on it and a choir’, he written one at this point, just a few A LOT OF THE would have dropped his tea! album tracks. Meanwhile, my “SAW were on their journey and management pointed out that NEWER S.A.W. ARTISTS I’d gone as far as I could with them. everyone needed to focus on They weren’t mugs and weren’t daft. making sure the next single NEVER GOT A LOOK-IN They knew how to write a hit that would be suitable for America. worked well on the radio. Bananarama were already IN THE STATES AND “I understood that we may not known but a lot of the newer have that [original] success again, SAW artists never got a look-in in but I was alright with it. I was the States and that frightened the THAT FRIGHTENED brutally honest with myself and shit out of me. realised I was a pop singer who might “It led to some issues, though, THE SHIT OUT not make another 25 albums. because Matt [Aitken] and Mike [Stock] “Being in a studio where you’ve got said, ‘Hang on a minute, we write the OF ME Quincy Jones’ string arranger, Jerry Hey, songs.’ I wasn’t the one jumping up and those were the boxes I wanted to tick. down demanding it be the single although I I wanted to be in LA working with the guy was hopeful I’d write a single one day. Pete who did the strings for Quincy and Michael had a different axe to grind as he was my Jackson. I wanted to be on the other side of publisher. He had an overview that Mike and “I was more part of the process on those the glass when the choir fired off and sang Matt didn’t as Pete was running the whole SAW records than people were conscious of the choral bits on Cry For Help. I’ll remember empire. Maybe he was thinking if I turned out – I wrote four songs on the first album and that until my dying day. Moments like that, a hundredth of what Marvin Gaye did, ie an four on the second – but for the likes of you can’t replace them.” artist that you sign becomes able to write his Never Gonna Give You Free did the kind of own songs, it might not be a bad thing. Up, Together Forever and numbers that Astley could “At first, it wasn’t gonna be my next single. Whenever You Need reasonably expect; a I actually sang a version of Nothing Can Somebody, SAW wrote Top 10 hit in the UK and Divide Us. I didn’t want to be an upstart, but all three of those tracks Top 40 in the US. A step I realised I didn’t think that should be the first and I just turned up and down, perhaps, from his single off my album in America. I wasn’t just sang. I didn’t have any SAW pomp but, on his totally bothered about America but I knew part to play in those own terms, a decent result. that it was a game-changer. I was being other than making tea on But by fourth album offered Coca-Cola commercials because I’d the sessions. Body & Soul, Rick’s heart had two No.1s. We didn’t do it in the end, “If we were having wasn’t in it anymore. The it’s a long story, but we won’t get into that. I’ll No.1 after No.1 I might grind of promoting his need something stronger for that one…” have stayed with SAW a music around the world bit longer but I just looked had worn thin. Without FREE AS A BIRD at it and thought, ‘I don’t the oxygen of publicity Rick’s third album – the pertinently-titled Free know how many records I’ll make and we’re surrounding it, the record virtually sank – marked a new chapter. A defiant statement not going to repeat Never Gonna Give You without trace and, at the age of just 27, Rick that he was a mature artist willing to step off Up.’ I still think that’s the best song they ever did the unthinkable – he retired from the the SAW conveyor belt even if it dented his wrote. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to go game to spend more time with his family. chances in the charts. and work in different studios with different “Being a pop star is weird. In reality, most of the things pop stars do are not very pop star-like. There’s not much hanging off a yacht in the Caribbean, it’s more often than not chatting to journalists on a speakerphone in an office with no windows. There are the METAL GURU moments why we all do it, such as performing on stage which is incredible, you RICK ASTLEY’S ROCK ALTER EGO also get to meet some really interesting “I have two friends and we’re in a punky mid-life crisis rock band called The people and visit some funky places. But a lot Luddites. One of the guys in it, Simon, is a best friend of mine. We got hammered of it is like being a travelling salesman. one night and created this track. So we formed a splinter group and called There’s nothing wrong with that, but when ourselves Kunsthaus, which is ‘Art House’ in German, but you know, said a you thought you were signing up to be a pop certain way… star, you know… it becomes very detached “The track sounded like Rammstein – well it sounded like Rammstein to us, in from the actual music.” our heads anyway and it’s called Paint Is My World (Father Ich In Veld). We did that then kinda forgot about it but when when we played Germany on tour, Simon FATHER FIGURE came out for a few nights. I told him: ‘We’re gonna have to play Paint Is My World While he was already financially secure, it’s tonight in Berlin.’ I got the band to learn it that afternoon, then on stage I found admirable Rick had the resolve to give this cardboard box to put on my head. In Denmark, we did it with a bin lid on my up his career with so many years still head. It was funny as hell, the audience loved it. ahead of him. And that decision “When you’re a kid and you start making music you’re doing it for the love of may have been in part at least it, you might hope to be the next David Bowie, but you’re doing it from a complete driven by his own troubled joy point of view. It’s a bit like if you have a kick around with your mates, you upbringing in a broken Off the back of don’t necessarily think you’ll end up playing for Chelsea or Man Utd but you still home. Forget money, it’s family that’s important… ‘Rickrolling’, Rick want to do it. That joy can be lost in the professionalism. We’re still keeping it fun.” was voted Best Act “It wasn’t just because of Ever at the 2008 my daughter Emilie. MTV Europe I don’t want her Music Awards

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© Peter Neill thinking I gave up my career for solely for that reason but it was a part of it. I just wanted to do normal things and be there for her. I was a bit ‘over it’ I DID THAT ALBUM 50 [the music business] and sick of it all. I have FOR MYSELF AND A more peaks and ‘up’ bits now than I did FEW DEDICATED FANS, back then when I was having more success.” IT JUST GREW INTO Astley’s childhood was affected by his parents’ bitter divorce; SOMETHING ELSE his decision to spend more time with his new ENTIRELY family therefore came from they could fix everything with Auto-Tune. a well-informed notion of how Thankfully, we’ve grown out of it a little now. important a stable domestic life There are some amazing singers now in was to his happiness. proper pop music, the young kids who have “There’s a bit of consciousness in that been coming through in the last 15 years. from me and probably underlying emotions Look at Adele, Sam Smith, Lewis Capaldi – of having divorced parents who didn’t people who could stand up in a pub and speak to each other, let alone live in the make people take notice or sing on a great same house. I grew up in an atmosphere that record and have a worldwide hit. That to me was a broken situation. I was only four or five is still a path that’s important.” when it happened but I spent most of my childhood in a BACK FOR GOOD pretty shitty Rick’s gradual re-emergence saw him tiptoe environment. I’m his way back into the music biz with the 04 grateful for my Germany-only release of 2001’s Keep It brothers and Turned On alongside regular touring. But it sisters who were was the Rickrolling phenomenon of 2007 and amazing, but in No.1 success of comeback album 50 where 05 terms of a family the stakes were really raised. If it wasn’t for 04 BIFFY CLYRO unit, I grew up in those, perhaps Astley would have been ONLY one that was a content to see out the rest of his days with REVOLUTIONS (2009) bit crap. In the cameo appearances on retro package tours. “I knew who the band were, but modern times “I think there’s an element with some FOR THOSE wasn’t too aware of their music we live in people – and I definitely fitted into that until my godson’s family introduced today more category – of saying, ‘You had a great go at ABOUT TO RICK… me to it. They kept on about Biffy people it, you’ve been really lucky and can still go Clyro, then I heard Many Of Horror manage to split up and be civil, out and play your old tunes but the truth is on the radio and was completely even if it’s just for the sake of the kids. you’re never going to have another hit record WE SALUTE YOU blown away. It literally floored me, Basically, my mum and dad were just broken. again.’ If you want to make an album in your He may be known for his R&B-influenced I pulled the car over and had a little They had a son who died before I was born. garage and put it on the internet, you’re tear in my eye. I went home and They had two sons after he died, but I think allowed to do that. You’re not going to have work, but Rick loves hard rock as well as soul downloaded the album and listened to they were just broken and couldn’t admit it. a record outside your 20 immediate friends greats. We asked him to pick out his essential 01 that song 20 times in a row. The rest of That original tragedy is an immensely tough that anyone’s going to know about. You have selection of five must-have albums. Only Revolutions was so unlike the thing to go through. I don’t know how they to be comfortable with that or else you drive single but the album is mega.” survived it, to be honest. yourself fucking mad. So that’s what I did. “My two brothers, my sister and me are all I did that album 50 purely for myself and a 01 AC/DC with the partners we’ve been with since we few dedicated fans around the world who HIGHWAY TO HELL (1979) 05 FOO FIGHTERS were pretty young, so maybe there’s a kept up with me. I just thought, you know “I learnt to play drums to that. I happened to mention this to CONCRETE AND subconscious sense of, ‘You know what, what, there’s something on the internet, you Dave Grohl on the first night I met him. One of his daughters is GOLD (2017) we’re gonna make sure this is gonna stick.’” don’t have to buy it but it’s there. It’s what I’m doing exactly the same thing – she’s learning drums to it, too.” “Having met the band and being ‘The Wilderness Years’ – as Rick doesn’t capable of at this point in my life. I’ve played invited to sing with him it feels a bit call them – at first looked like they’d see him every instrument on it, I’ve written everything. weird to choose this. It’s like, ‘Oh become a songwriter or producer for hire. It’s just a love letter. It’s where I’m at right 02 AL GREEN you’ve got into the Foo Fighters have But changes in music culture saw it pan out now, that’s it. It just grew into something else.” GREATEST HITS (1975) you?!’ I’ve liked them for a long time, differently. Save for co-writes with former As we wind our chat up an ITN news crew “I’m one of those Philistines that very often puts on a greatest hits I’ve just happened to meet them. All Marillion frontman Fish (Mission Statement) give Rick’s PR guru a call and we grab an record. I love listening to proper albums all the way through but their records are phenomenal, but one and Popstars: The Rivals winners One True Uber to dash over to the singer’s record 02 when I’m in the kitchen and have just opened a bottle of red wine, of my favourites is Concrete And Gold, Voice on Shakespeare’s (Way With Words), company for an interview to be broadcast the I just want to hear my Al Green favourites.” their last album. It’s a real departure. Astley remained mostly silent. following day on the nightly bulletin. His third It’s still them but you can hear the fact “I had a studio built and pursued it for a act renaissance shows no signs of slowing that they’re all in love with The Beatles. while but I don’t think I had the chops for it. down and he’s as newsworthy as ever. The 03 BILL WITHERS The producer Greg Kurstin has worked The 90s brought in this whole Auto-Tune Best Of Me may be a bookend, but don’t bet LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL (1973) with proper pop artists and it’s kinda thing. Dance music became massive. There against any number of further chapters. 03 “Richard Drummie from Go West gave me this. It sounds amazing funky that the Foos have said to were loads of pop songs obviously but it was and Bill talks a lot between songs. He explains what his grandma themselves, ‘We shouldn’t be afraid of a bad time to get involved in learning how to l The Best Of Me is out now on really meant to him when he’s about to play Grandma’s Hands. opening up a window and putting our make records and producing vocals. BMG. Rick Astley tours the UK from It sends a shiver down my spine. He’s amazing, one of the most heads through it’. I’m a bit of a closet Managers and labels were happy to sign 3 April 2020. For tickets, visit underrated songwriters of all time – his songs are everywhere.” rocker really.” people who couldn’t really sing, because rickastley.co.uk

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